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Thursday, February 16, 2012

During a recent visit to the Napa Valley, I had the chance to stop by and check out Infineon Raceway. Infineon, formely known as Sears Point, is just a few miles North of San Francisco and a stone's throw away from Napa and Sonoma. It looks like an amazing track and the facilities are top notch. It is a 2.22 miles (3.57 km), 12-turn course with some serious elevation changes.

I timed the visit perfectly and was lucky enough to get there just as Ferrari Challenge race team R3 Motorsports was out on track testing the new Ferrari 458GT. What a car! What an insanely good soundtrack!!!

R3 Motorsports is one of the teams that participate in the ultra exclusive Ferrari Challenge series for "gentlemen racers". It recently announced a partnership with Ferrari of Beverly Hills and Ferrari Silicon Valley to start and sponsor a new team under the name of Scuderia Corsa. R3 Motorsports had rented the track for the day to test the new cars for the season. Can you imagine the budget they are working with? Nice timing on my part too.

Here is a shot of the car being worked on in the garage:

In the pits:

Tractor trailers that brought the goods:

And the Ferrari 458GT negotiating Turn 9a:

Infineon is also home of the Audi Sportcar Experience. They have a really impressive race fleet present at the facility:

Here is also an Infineon track map complete an aerial shot:

And here is a cool in-car video with telemetry and a live track map. The intent is to show the track at lower speed so it's not a fast lap. Race speeds will be much higher.